This invention relates to radiotelephones and, in particular, to radiotelephones that support voice dialing functions.
It is known to employ voice recognition features in radiotelephones for controlling various telephone operations in accordance with user voice commands. By example, in at least some conventional radiotelephones having a voice recognition capability, automatic dialing is provided in response to a user speaking a telephone number into the radiotelephone. Such radiotelephones typically include a memory which stores speech-related information representing a plurality of user-spoken telephone numbers. This information is generally pre-stored in the memory by users of the radiotelephones, and is subsequently employed by the radiotelephones while attempting to recognize a user""s speech input specifying that a call be placed to a destination telephone identified by one of the telephone numbers.
For users of these types of radiotelephones, the task of storing each telephone number into the radiotelephone memory can be a burden, especially where a substantial number of telephone numbers need to be stored. Another drawback is that the storage of a substantial number of these telephone numbers can cause a large portion of the radiotelephone memory to be occupied.
It can therefore be appreciated that it would be desirable to provide a radiotelephone having a capability for automatically dialing a telephone number for placing a call in response to a user speaking a telephone number into the radiotelephone, without requiring that the user pre-store the telephone number in the radiotelephone before the call is attempted.
It is an object of this invention to provide a radiotelephone having a keypad, wherein the radiotelephone has a capability for enabling a user to assign spoken words, such as digits or other selected alpha-numeric characters, to selected keys of the keypad, and wherein the radiotelephone also has a capability for automatically dialing a telephone number for placing an outgoing call in response to the user speaking, into the radiotelephone, words identifying individual ones of the keys corresponding to the telephone number.
Further objects and advantages of this invention will become apparent from a consideration of the drawings and ensuing description.
The foregoing and other problems are overcome and the objects of the invention are realized by methods and apparatus in accordance with embodiments of this invention. A method of this invention is disclosed for operating a mobile terminal, such as cellular radiotelephone, that has a memory, a keypad having a plurality of keys, a user-interface, such as a microphone, and a display device for displaying information, including menu-related messages, to a user.
In accordance with one aspect of this invention, a method is provided for enabling the user of the mobile terminal to assign spoken words to selected keys of the keypad of the mobile terminal, thereby identifying the selected keys with the spoken words. The method comprises steps of: (a) depressing at least one key of the keypad, each key corresponding to a respective alpha-numeric character; and (b) speaking at least one word into the microphone of the mobile terminal for assigning the spoken at least one word as an identifier for the at least one key depressed in step (a).
Also in accordance with the invention, the user can command the mobile terminal to dial a telephone number for placing an outgoing call by speaking, into the microphone, words identifying those ones of the keys which correspond to alpha-numeric characters of the telephone number.